DIAMOND HEAD, NEAR HONOLULU
Once a volcano, now a fortress

THE HULK OF THE GERMAN MAN-OF-WAR, THE ADLER
Wrecked in the hurricane of 1889 at Samoa

AFTER SEVEN DAYS OF SEA—THIS EMERGED

HILO, HAWAII
An oasis in the desert of the Pacific

F. W. Caine, Photo

Photo, H. Winkelmann

IN GIANT CANOES HELIOLITHIC IMMIGRANTS ROAMED THE SOUTH SEAS

The palm-trees bow solemnly before changeless winds, in the direction of Honolulu, which lies like an open fan at the foot of the valley near the sea. Color is in action everywhere,—spots of metallic green, of volcanic red, filtered through a screen of marine gray. Honolulu lies below to the rear; Kaneohe, beyond vast fields of pineapple, before us; the sea, wide, open, limitless except for the reaches of the heavens, binding all. And then there is an upward, circular motion,—that of the rising mists drawn by the burning rays of the sun pressing landward and dashing themselves into the valley and falling in sheets of rain upon the earth. Wedged into a gully, as though caught and unable to break away, was a heavy cloud,—but it was being drained of every drop of moisture as a traveler held up by a gang of highway-men.

This circular motion is found not only in inanimate nature. Once, at least, it has whirled the Hawaiians into tragedy. Here, history tells us, Kamehameha I (the fifth from the last of Hawaii's kings) hurled an army of native Oahu islanders over this bluff, back into the source of their being. Without quarter he pressed them on, over this pass; while they, unwilling to yield to capture, chose gladly to dash themselves into the valley below. One is impressed by the striking interplay of emotion with sheer nature. The controlling element which directs both man and mountain seems the same. States and stars alike emerge, crash, and crumble.

We rolled rapidly down into the valley past miles and miles of pineapple fields. Then we came, as it were, to the land's end. Nothing sheer now before us, nothing precipitate. A bit of freshness, of coolness, and an imperceptible tapering off. The sea.

Here at Kaneohe dwelt Arthur Mackaye, brother of the poet, whose name was vaguely known to me. He was slender, bearded, loosely clad, with open collar but not without consciousness and conventionality,—a conventionality in accordance with prescribed notions of freedom. Refreshing, cool as the atmosphere roundabout, distinct from the tropical lusciousness which is the general state of both men and nature in and about Honolulu, the personality of this lone man—this man who had flung everything aside—was a fit complement to the experience of Manoa Valley and the Pali.

Differences abound in Hawaii. The Chinese is no twin brother of the Japanese. In fact, there is probably as much relationship between the Hawaiian and the Japanese as there is between these two "Oriental" races. The major part of the Japanese being Malay and the Polynesian Hawaiians having at least lived with the Malays some hundreds of years ago and infused some of their Caucasic ingredients into them, there is more of "home-coming" when "Jap" meets "Poly," than when he meets "Chink." But notwithstanding proximity and propinquity, over which diplomatic letter-writers labor hard, when the Chinese and the Japanese and the Hawaiian come together, the Hawaiian "vanishes like dewdrops by the roadside," the Chinese jogs along, and the Japanese runs motor-cars and raises children. The Japanese obtrudes himself much more upon the life of the community than the other two races, but with no more relinquishment of his own ways. He drives the cars and he drives white men to more activity than they really enjoy. And the Hawaiian sells necklaces of luscious flowers under the shaded porticoes of the buildings along the waterfront.

Aside from the adoption of our trousers and coat and hat, and a few other unimportant aspects of our civilization, the observer on the streets of Honolulu sees no mingling of races. The only outward sign of this mixing is the Salvation Army. There, large as life, with the usual circular crowd about them, stood these soldiers of misfortune, praising the Lord in English. A row of unlimited Oriental offspring upon the curb; a few grown-ups on the walk; a converted Japanese who looked as though his Shinto father had disowned him; a self-conscious white boy who confessed to having been converted just recently; two indifferent-looking soldiers; a distrustful-looking leader and a hopeless-visaged white woman. Twenty feet away, a saloon. I wonder what the Salvation Army is going to do now that that object of attraction is no more.

As far as Honolulu was concerned, it seemed to me that barter and trade were more intoxicating to the majority than was drink. The world everywhere about seemed a-litter with boxes and bales and shops and indulgences. How much of all the things exchanged, how many of the things for which these people toil endlessly, are worth while or essential, or even truly satisfying? The dingy stores, their only worth their damp coolness; the huddling and the innocent dirt; the inextricable mesh of little things to be done,—only the Chinese sage who posed for my camera in front of his wee stock of yarns was able to tell their value to life. His long, thin, pointed beard, his lack of vanity in accepting my interest in him, his genial smile and fatherly disinterestedness symbolized more than anything I saw in Honolulu the virtue and endurance of race. Beside the eager, grasping Japanese and the rolling, expanding white men, he looked like the overtowering palm-tree that seems to grow out of the monkey-pod in the park.

6

To a creature from another world, hovering over us in the unseen ether, watching us move about beneath the sea of air which is life to us, Honolulu would seem like a little glass aquarium. The human beings move about as though on the best of terms with one another. Some look more gorgeous than others, but from outward appearances they are as innocent of ill intentions against one another as the aquatic creatures for which Hawaii is famous, out in the cool, moist aquarium at Waikiki.

Kihikihi, the Hawaiians call one of them, and his friends the white folk have christened him Moorish Idol. I don't know what Kihikihi means, but as to his being an idol, I can't accept that for a moment, except in so far as he deserves to be idolized. For about him there is no more of that static, woodeny thing which idols generally are than there is about Pavlowa. Yet he is only a fish, and not so very large at that. He is moon-shaped, but rainbow-hued. He is perhaps three-quarters of an inch across the shoulders, but six inches up and down, and perhaps eight from nose to the ends of his two tails. And so he looks like a three-quarter moon. Soft, vertical bands of black, white, and egg-yellow run into one another on both sides, and a long white plume trails downward in a semicircle. He is the last word in form, translucent harmony of color and of motion. He moves about with rhythmic dignity and grace. At times his eyes bulge with an eagerness and self-importance as though the world depended on him for its security. Though he is constantly searching for food, he does not seem avaricious; and while he admits his importance, he is not proud.

Kihikihi has a rival in Nainai, who has been given an alias,—Surgeon Fish, light brown with an orange band on his sides. Nainai is heavier than Kihikihi, more plump. His color, too, is heavier and therefore seems more restrained. It is richer and hence stimulates envy and desire.

Lauwiliwili Unkunukuoeoe has no aliases, thank you, but he has a snout on which his Hawaiian name could be stamped in fourteen-point type and still leave room for half a dozen aliases. Only a water-creature could possess such a title as this and keep from dragging it in the mud. Knowing that he would be called by that appellation in life, his Creator must have compensated him with plenty of snout.

But it is better to have one long snout than eight. And though no one would give preference to any devil-fish, this long-snouted creature is the rival by an inverse ratio of that eight-snouted glutton. The octopus, the devil of the deep, is an insult to fishdom. The Moorish Idol and this Medusa-like monster in the same aquarium make a worse combination than Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. This ugly, flabby, boneless body, just thick skin and muscle, with a large bag for a head,—eight sea-worms extending and contracting in an insatiable search for food is the paramount example of gross materialism. If only the high cost of living would drive to suicide this beast with hundreds of mouths to feed, the world might be rid of a perfidious-looking monster. But his looks do him great injustice, and were the Hawaiian variety—which is, after all, only squid—to disappear, the natives would be deprived of one of their chief delicacies. At the markets—that half-way house between aquaria and museums—numerous dried octopus, like moth-eaten skins, lie about waiting for the housewife's art to camouflage them. But I shall have something to say elsewhere about markets and museums, and now shall turn, for a moment, to more startling wonders still.

7

An artist is delighted if he finds a study with a perfect hand or a beautiful neck; or, in nature, if a simple charm is left undisturbed by the confusion of human creation. Yet at night as our ship passed the island of Maui, it seemed to me that all the sweet simplicities that make life worth while had been assembled here in the beginning of the world and left untouched. The moon rose on the peak of the cone-shaped mountain, and for a time stood set, like a moonstone in a ring. The pyramid of night-blue earth was necklaced in street lights, which stretched their frilled reflections across the surface of the sea; and just back of it all lay the crater of Haleakala, the House of the Sun.

For twenty miles we glided on through cane plantations, banana- and cocoanut-trees, and miniature palisades here and there rising to the dignity of hills. We landed, toward noon, at a village which stood on a little plateau,—quiet, self-satisfied, though in no way elaborate. The best of the huts stood against the hill across the "street" formed by two rows of thatch-roofed and leaf-walled huts. It belonged to the native Christian teacher. He turned it over to us, himself and his wife and baby disappearing while we lunched. Much of our repast remaining, the missionary offered it to the teacher, but I noticed that he looked displeased and turned the platter over to the flock of children which had gathered outside,—a brood of little fellows, their bellies bulging out before them, not even the shadow of a garment covering their nakedness.

I returned to the hut a little later for my camera, not knowing that any one was there. Inside, in one corner, lay the teacher's wife, stretched face downward, nursing her baby, which lay on its back upon the soft mats. She smiled, slightly embarrassed, and I withdrew. Here, then, was the place where civilization and savagery met.

There were few Fijians in the village, mostly children and several old women. A Solomon Islander, who had got there during the days when blackbirding or kidnapping was common, moved among them. He had quite forgotten his own language and could not understand Mr. Ryecroft when the missionary spoke to him. An elderly man beckoned to me from his hut and there offered to sell me a heavy, ebony carved club that could kill an ox, swearing by all the taboos that it was a sacred club and had killed many a man in his father's time.

A narrow path climbing the hill close behind the village led us to a view over the long sweep of the river and its valley. The utmost of peace and tranquillity hung, without a tremor, below us. Twenty huts fringed the plateau, forming a vague ellipse, interwoven with lovely salvias, coleuses, and begonias. The village seemed to have been caught in the crook of the river, while a field of sugar-cane filled the plain across the stream, the shaggy mountains quartering it from the rear. Distant, reaching toward the sun, ranged the mountains from which the river is daily born anew.

As our launch chugged steadily, easily down-stream, and the evening shadows overstepped the sun, Fiji emerged fresh and sweet as I had not seen it before. The missionaries, till then sober and reserved, relaxed, the men's heads in the laps of their wives. Sentimental songs of long ago, like a stream of soft desire through the years, supplanted precept in their minds, and I realized for the first time why some men chose to be missionaries. It was to them no hardship. The trials and sufferings were romance to their natures, and the giving up of everything for Christ was after all only living out that world-old truism that in order to have life one must be ready to surrender it.

8

Next day Mr. Waterhouse and I wandered about the village of the sugar factory. At the bidding of several minor chiefs who had described a circle on the mats, we entered one of the dark huts by way of a low door. In a corner a woman tended the open fire, and near an opening a girl sat munching. The room was thick with smoke, the thin reeds supporting the roof glistening with soot. Everything was in order and according to form. They were making kava (or ava or yangana), the native drink. This used to be the work of the chieftain's daughter, who ground the ava root with her teeth and then mixed it with water. The law doesn't permit this now; so it is crushed in a mortar (tonoa). Specialization has reached out its tentacles even to this place, so that now the captain of this industry is an Indian.

The ava mixed, it was passed round in a well-scraped cocoanut-shell cut in half. As guests we were offered the first drink. Extremely bitter, it is nevertheless refreshing. After I made a pretense of drinking, the bowl was passed to the most respected chief. With gracious self-restraint he declined it. "This is too full. You have given me altogether too much." A little bit of it was poured back, and he drank it with one gulp. He would really have liked twice as much, not half, but there is more modesty and decorum among savages than we imagine. In fact, our conventions are often only atrophied taboos.

But the women, not so handsome nor so elegantly coifed as the men, were excluded from a share in the toast. They were not even part of the entertainment. The sexes seldom meet in any form of social intercourse. The boys never flirt with the girls, nor do they ever seem to notice them. In public there is a never-diminishing distance between them. A world without love-making, primitive life is outwardly not so romantic as is ours. The "romance" is generally that of the foreigner with the native women, not among the natives themselves.

The daughter of the biggest living Fijian chief wandered about like an outcast. She wore a red Mother-Hubbard gown, and nothing else. Her hair hung down to her shoulders. Having gone through the process of discoloration by the application of lime, according to the custom among the natives in the tropics, it was reddish and stiff, but, being long, had none of the leonine quality of the men's hair. Andi Cacarini (Fijian for Katherine), daughter of a modern chief, spoke fairly good English. She wasn't exactly ashamed, but just shy. The better class of Fijians, they who have come in contact with white people, all manifest a timid reticence. Andi Cacarini was shy, but hardly what one could call bashful or fastidious. She posed for me as though an artist's model, not at all ungraceful in her carriage or her walk.

The male Fijian is extremely timid, but none the less fastidious. The care with which he trains and curls his hair would serve as an object-lesson to the impatient husband of the vainest of white women. This doesn't mean that the Fijian man is effeminate in his ways, but he is particular about his hair. The process of discoloring it is exact. A mixture of burnt coral with water makes a fine substitute for soap. When washed out and dried, the hair is curled and combed and anointed. From the point of view of sanitation, the treatment is excellent, and from that of art—just watch the proud male pass down the road!

No matter where one goes in Fiji—or any of the South Sea Islands—the dance goes with one. Here at Davuilevu one afternoon in the hot, scorching sun, the natives gathered on the turf for merrymaking. It was no special holiday, no unusual event. To our way of thinking it is a tame sort of dance they do. We hear much of the freedom between the sexes in the tropics, and one gains the impression that there are absolutely no taboos. But just as there is nothing in all Japan—however delightful—to compensate the child, or even grown-ups, for the lack of the kiss, so none of the Fijian dances fill that same emotional requirement which with us is secured through the embrace of men and women in the dance. From the Fijian point of view, the whirling of couples about together must be extremely immodest, if not immoral.

Sitting in a double row, one in front of the other, were oiled and garlanded Fijians. Behind them and in a circle sat a number of singers and lali-players. As they began beating time, the oiled natives began to move from side to side rhythmically. Their arms and bodies jerked in a most fascinating and interpretative manner. No voices in the wide world are lovelier than the voices of Fijians in chorus; no other music issues so purely as the Fijian music from the depths of racial experience. Sometimes the dancers swung half-way round from side to side, with arms akimbo, or extended their arms in all directions, clapping their hands while chanting in soothing, melodious deep tones.

Judging from what I heard of the music of the Tongans, the Samoans, and the Fijians, I give the prize to the Fijians for richness of tone. More primitive than the plaintive Tongans, the Fijian music is a weird combination of the intellectual, the martial, and the industrial,—more fascinating than the passionate, voluptuous tunes and dances of the Samoans and the Hawaiians. The Polynesians, probably because of their close kinship with the Europeans, are much more sentimental in their music. The Fijian is more vigorous and to me more truly artistic.

No study, it seems to me, would throw more light on the history and unity of the human race than that of the dance and music. Why two races so far apart as the Japanese and the Maories of New Zealand should be so strikingly alike in their cruder dances, is hard to say. And the Fijians seem in some way the link between these two. The Fijian doubtless inherits some of his musical qualities from his negroid mixture, but he has certainly improved upon it if that is so. He has no regrets, no sentimental longings, and in consequence his songs are free from racial affectation.

The Fijians always sing. The instant the day's work is done and groups form they begin to sing. Half a dozen of them sit down and cross their legs before them, each places a stick so that one end rests lightly on one toe, the other on the ground; and while they tap upon these sticks, others sing and clap hands, swaying in an enchantment of loveliness. One carries the melody in a strained tenor, the others support him with a bass drawl. Once in a while an instrument is secured, as a flute, and the ensemble is complete. Even the tapping on the stick becomes instrumental in its quality.

As the day draws to a close, from the cane-fields smoke rises in all directions. The plantation workers have gathered piles of cane refuse for destruction. Like miniature volcanoes, these, with the coming of darkness, shine in the lightless night. It makes one slightly sad, this clearing away of the remnants of daily toil, this purification by fire. Then the sound of that other lali (the hollow tree-trunk), once the war-alarum or call to a cannibal feast, now at Davuilevu the invitation to prayer, the dampness, and the sense of crowding things in growth,—this is what will ever remain vivid to me.

9

Poor untroubled Fijians! This simple love of harmony, a majestic sense of force and brutality,—yet, withal, so naÏve, withal so easily satisfied, so easily led. Once a foreigner met a native who seemed in great haste and trembling. The native inquired the time, in dread lest he miss the launch for Suva. In his hand he carried a warrant for his own arrest, with instructions to present himself at jail. When the foreigner told him that it was up to the jailer to worry about it, he seemed greatly shocked. One of the missionaries had been asked to keep his eye on a friend's house. In the absence of the owner, the missionary found a Fijian in the act of burglarizing. When questioned it was found that the native wanted to get into jail, where he was sure of three meals and shade, without worry. This is almost worthy of civilized man, by whom it is perhaps more commonly practised.

But the kind of jail in which men were at that time incarcerated was not enough to frighten the most liberty-loving individual. Because of the humidity and dampness, the structure was left open on one side, only three substantial walls and a roof being practical. Before the white man got full control and the native had some iron injected into his nature, it was not an arduous life the prisoners led. The missionary told me that once the head jailer was found sitting out of sight, with the officer in charge of the prisoners, tilting his chair against the wall of the jail. The prisoners had been ordered to labor. The officer in charge was to execute the command. Between puffs of tobacco, he would shout: "Up shot!" and rest a while; then "Down shot!"—more rest. Not a prisoner moved a muscle, the weights never rose from the ground. The men were deep within the shadows. The period of punishment over, they were ordered into their heaven of still more rest and more shade.

From our way of thinking, these are flagrant deceptions. But to the Fijian (and to most South Sea races) the inducements for greater exertion are simply non-existent. His revelries have been tabooed, his wars have been stopped, his native arts are in constant competition with cheap importations from our commercialized, industrialized world. What is there, then, for him to do? Little wonder that his native indifference to life is growing upon him. His conception of life after death never held many horrors. Even in the fierce old days it was easy for a Fijian to announce most casually that he would die at eight o'clock the following day. He would be oiled and made ready, and at the stated time he died. Most likely a state of catalepsy, but he was buried and none thought a second time about it. One boy was recently roused from such a condition and still lives.

The only means of counteracting this apathy are education and the awakening of ambition through manual training and the teaching of trades. This, the head of the mission told me, was his main object. Missionary efforts, according to one man, were directed more to this purpose than to the inculcation of any special religious precepts. And there is no question that that will work. The will to live may yet spring afresh in the Fijian.

From the nucleus formed by the mission is growing a more elaborate educational system. Recently the several existing schools have been amalgamated under a new ordinance. A proposal in reference to a more efficient system of vernacular or sub-primary schools was embodied in a bill put before the legislative council. A more satisfactory method of training teachers was deliberated upon. The Fijians are, it is seen, outgrowing the kindergarten stage, but the grown-ups are largely children still.

10

A fortnight after I landed in Suva I was steaming for Levuka, the former capital of the islands, situated on a much smaller land-drop not many hours' journey away. These are the only two important ports in the group, and inter-island vessels seldom go to one without visiting the other. Levuka is a much prettier place than Suva. Its little clusters of homes and buildings seem to have dug their heels into the hillside to keep from sliding into the sea.

Along the shore to the left stood a group of Fijian huts,—a suburb of Levuka, no doubt. Only a few old women were at home, and one old man. Nothing in the wide world is more restful to one's spirit than to arrive at a village which is deserted of toilers. Nothing is more symbolic of the true nature of home, the village being more than an isolated home, but a composite of the home spirit which is not tainted by any evidence of barter and trade.

On the other side of Levuka, however, was an altogether different kind of village, that of the shipwrights. Upon dry-docks stood the skeletons of ships, fashioned with hands of love and ambition. In such vessels these ancient rovers of the sea wandered from island to island, learning, teaching, mixing, and disturbing the sweetness of nature, with which no race on earth was more blessed.

The Atua, on which I had sailed from Suva, was a fairly large inter-island steamer that made the rounds of all the important groups. She was bound for Samoa, whither I had determined to go. There is no better opportunity of getting a glimpse of the contrast between the natives of the various South Sea islands than on board one of these inter-island vessels. They are generally manned by the natives of one of the groups,—in this case, the Fijians. These men handle the cargo at all ports, and remain on board until the vessel returns to Fiji en route to the Antipodes. They feed and sleep on the open deck and make themselves as happy and as noisy as they can. A gasoline tin of tea, baked potatoes, hard biscuit, and a chunk of fat meat, which is all placed before them on the dirty deck (they are given no napkins),—that is Fijian joy.

After their work, which in port sometimes keeps them up till the morning hours, these strange creatures, untroubled by thought, stretch themselves on the wooden hatchway and sleep. There I found them at half-past five in the morning, all covered with the one large sheet of canvas and never a nose poking out. Air! Perhaps they got some through a little hole in the great sheet. Some stood and slept like tired, overworked horses.

One queer Fijian with turbaned head grinned in imitation of none other than himself, a vague, undefined curiosity rolling about in his skull. He followed me everywhere, his white eyes staring and his mouth wide open. Here was a future Fijian statesman in the process of formation. His nebular, chaotic mentality was taking note of a creature as far removed from his understanding as a star from his reach.

One white soldier, an elderly man, wished to protect himself from the wind, and asked a Fijian to haul over a piece of canvas. The black man did so, but when the boatswain saw it, he was enraged. The Fijian took all the scolding, said never a word, and quickly replaced the sheet. As the boatswain moved away, the soldier handed the native a cigarette, saying: "Have one of these, old sport. One must expect reverses in war." The native grinned and felt the row was worth while.

There were Tongans, Indians, Samoans, and whites on board, and though these are nearer kin to us, I liked the Fijians most. Yet the Tongans are an attractive lot, refined in feature, in manner, and in person. Perhaps that is why they have the distinction of being the only South Sea people with their own kingdom, a cabinet, and a parliament.

The noise the Fijians make while in port is excruciating. It is something unclassifiable. They roll their r's, shout as though mad with anger, and then burst out in childish laughter at nothing. These boyish barbarians enjoy themselves much more in yelling than they would in chorus with a Caruso. How torrential is the stream of invective which issues against some fellow-laborer! With what a terrific crash it falls upon its victim! But how utter the disappointment when, after one has expectantly waited for a scrap, a gurgle of hilarity breaks from the throats which the moment before seemed such sirens of hate and malice!

And so they toil, happy to appear important, busy, honestly busy, loading the thousands of crates of green bananas, the cargo which passes to and fro. Happier than the happiest, sharing the scraps of a meal without the growl so common among our sailors, each always seems to get just what he wants and helps in the distribution of the portions to the others. The missus never bothers him, no matter how long he is away, and instantly labor ceases the group is "spiritualized" into a singing society and the racial opera is in full swing.

I had anticipated relief at their absence when the steamer set off for the colder regions south. Yet something pleasant was gone out of life the moment the ship steamed out. The sailors moved about like pale ghosts who had mechanically wandered back to a joyless life. The white man's virtues are his burdens. His tasks are done so that he may purchase pleasure. The ship was orderly, everything took its place, even the cursing and yelling came within control. We were heading again for civilization.

I felt somewhat like the old folks after their wish had rid the town of all mischievous little boys, and my heart strained back for an inward glimpse of the life behind. The smell of mold and copra returned; the damp beds; the cool, clear night air; the moonlight upon the shallow reefs; dappled gray breakers, playing upon the shore as upon a child's ocean; in the dark, along Victoria Parade, the shuffle of bare feet in the dust, the dim figures of tall, bushy-haired men and slim, wiry Hindus; the thud of heeled boots on the dry earth. And far off there, the sound of the lali, the singing of deep voices, the vision of an earthly paradise,—shattered by the sighting of land ahead.

CHAPTER V
THE SENTIMENTAL SAMOANS

1

On the Niagara was a troupe of Samoan men and women who had been to San Francisco demonstrating their arts at the Panama-Pacific Exhibition. This, our meeting on the wide, syrup-like tropical sea seemed to me almost a welcome, a coming out to greet me and to lead me to the portals of their home. They were en route to Suva, Fiji, where they were to await an inter-island vessel to take them to Samoa. They were traveling third class, and the way I discovered them is not to their discredit. We were becoming more or less bored with life on deck, the games of ship tennis and quoits being too obviously make-believe to be entertaining. At times I would get as far away from the gregarious passengers as possible, and again a number of us would gather upon the hatchway and read or chatter. It was a thick latticed covering, and the warm air from below none too agreeable. But with it rose strains of strange melodies, as from Neptune's regions of the deep. Peering down, we espied a number of Samoan men and women, lounging upon the floor of the hold. We took our reputations in our hands and made the descent.

There were big, burly men and broad, sprawling women, half-naked and asleep. One could see at a glance that they had been spoiled by the attention they had received while on exhibition at the fair, but the freedom of life among third-class passengers somewhat softened the acquired stiffness, and they relaxed again into native ways. Hour by hour, as the vessel moved southward, they seemed to come back to life, to thaw out as it were, while we were wilting by degrees.

The scene was one which could have been found only in tropical waters under the burning sun. Smoke, bare feet, nakedness, people fat with the sprawly fatness which is the style of the South Seas, unwashed sailors,—a medley of people and cargo and steamer stench. But also of the sweetly monotonous song of the Samoan girl, the swishing of the water against the nose of the ship in the twilight without, and the steady push of the vessel toward the equator.

I whiled away many a pleasant hour, learning a few of the native words in song and gossip. It is hard to distinguish one native from the other at first, but Fulaanu stood out above the rest like a creature over-imbued with good-nature. She was flat, flabby, with a drawl in speech that had the effect not only in her voice but her entire bearing of a leaning Tower of Pisa. Her body bent backward, her head was tilted up, and her long, prominent nose also slanted almost with pride. She was an enormous girl, plain, soft, with absolutely no fighting-spirit in her, but she stood her ground against all masculine advances with a charm that was in itself teasingly alluring. She was always flanked on each side by a sailor. They pretended to teach her the ukulele, they proffered English lessons, they found one excuse after another for being near her, and she never shooed them away; but I'd swear by all the gods that not one of them ever more than held her hand or leaned lovingly against her.

Yet Fulaanu was as sentimental a maiden as I have ever laid eyes on. She was constantly drawling some sentimental song she had learned in California, the ukulele was seldom out of her hands, she never joined in any of the card games going on constantly roundabout her, and she was always ready to swap songs with any one willing to teach her.

"I teach you my language," she said to me, and slowly, with twinkling eyes, she pronounced certain words which I repeated. We had often taught French to our boys at our little school in California in that way,—the Marseillaise, for instance,—and the method was not strange to me. She used the song method, too, an old English song that was just then the rage in Samoa. The English words run somewhat like this:

And you will take my hand
As you did when you took my name;
But it's only a beautiful picture,
In a beautiful golden frame.

I'm sure I have them all muddled, but let me hum this tune to myself and immediately Fulaanu, the hold, Fiji, Samoa, and all the scents and sounds of savagedom come instantly to my mind. For everywhere I went they were singing this song, through their noses but with all the sentimental ardor of the young flapper; as at a summer resort in America when a new song hit has been made, the sound of it is heard from delivery boy to housemaid and as many different renderings of it as individual temperament demands.

There was Setu, too,—tall, straight, with that easy grace known only among people free of clothes. Setu spoke English very well, and was as companionable a chap as one could pick up in many a mile. But Setu's heart was not his own; he stood guardian over a treasure he had found in San Francisco. Not an American girl, no, sir! These savage boys did not play the devil in our land as our savages do in theirs. But Setu was the personification of chivalry, and, what was more, he was in love. To look at him and then at her was to despair of human instinct of natural selection. How an Apollo of his excellence should have been unable to find a more handsome objet d'amour, I cannot imagine. She was short, well rounded, with a head as square as Fulaanu's was oblong, and a nose as snubby as Fulaanu's was romanesque. She was evidently committed, body and soul, to Setu for she was as devoid of charm for the others as Fulaanu was full of it. And so all day long, Setu and his sweetheart hugged each other in a corner, as oblivious of the presence of a ship-load of people as though they had been ensconced in a hut of their own. They were evidently taking advantage of proximity to civilization, for such immodest behavior is not frequent in the tropics. Civilization had taught the savages some things at least. Whenever Setu was free from love-making, he would spare a moment to me, and on those rare occasions he stirred my spirit with promises of guidance in his native island that threatened to exhaust my funds.

The romantic associations we have with the South Seas were in this group reversed, for to these primitive people the greatest romance imaginable came with their journey to America. There young people from different islands met and fell in love with one another; there, under the benign influence of American spooning, one couple was married, and there their first baby was born,—an American subject, brought back to Pago Pago (American Samoa) to resume his citizenship. There they learned true modesty, which comprised stockings and heavy boys' shoes; the art of playing solitaire, in which one fat, matronly-looking woman indulged all day as though she had been brought along as chaperon and felt herself considerably out of it; and even en route for home they were learning the art of striking by calculation and without passion or frenzy.

I was sitting on the hatch with Fulaanu, who was strumming away on her ukulele, when a ring was formed in the middle of the hold and a young white man began boxing with a Samoan. The white boxer was obviously an amateur, bearing himself with all the unpleasant mannerisms of his profession,—a haughty, pugnacious, overbearing self-conceit. He had every advantage in training over his antagonist, whom he peppered vigorously. He kept it up when it was evident that the young Samoan was going under. One last blow and the fellow doubled over, bleeding from nose and mouth. It took ten minutes to bring him round. In the meanwhile, the victor of the unfair bout strutted around as though he had accomplished something remarkable.

It was interesting to see the effect this had on the "primitive" Samoans. There was consternation among them; a hush came over the hold. The vibration of the steamer and the splashing of the water against its iron side alone broke the stillness. The Samoan girls, though they did not grow hysterical, were most decidedly displeased, turning in disgust from the sight of blood. Yet according to our notions they are primitive, and the fact is that a few generations ago they were savages.

But they were not long in distress. The spell of the equatorial sun was upon them, and they soon relaxed. There upon mats, as in their own huts, lay rows of fat, large, voluptuous men and women; nor was there even a rope to separate the sexes as in an up-to-date Japanese bath. They seemed to sleep all day, in shifts governed by impulse only. A woman would rise and move about a while, then go back to lounge again. Enormous, broad-shouldered and black mustached men would snore gently, rise and inspect life, and decide that slumber was better for one's soul. But Fulaanu lounged with her ukulele, surrounded by amorous sailors who gazed longingly into her eyes.

One night we arranged for a meeting of the "classes." We promised the Samoans a good collection if they would come and dance for us on deck. We invited the first-class folk to come, too. They stood as far to one side of us as was consonant with first-class dignity represented by an extra few pounds sterling in the price of the ticket. But for a moment we forgot that there were class and race in the world.

It was not one of those interminable revelries one reads about, that begin with twilight and end with twilight. On the contrary, it was a little squall of entertainment, one that breaks out of a clear sky and leaves the sky just as clear in a trice. There was no occasion for self-expression here. They had been asked to dance for our entertainment, not for theirs. There we stood, ready to applaud; there they were, ready to be applauded, to receive the collection promised. It was another little thing they had picked up in our world, from our civilization,—the commercialization of art. Our artists, scribes, and entertainers have been considerably raised above prostitution of their talents by a certain commercialization, by the translation of their worth in dollars and cents; and we need a little more of it to free art from bondage to patronage. But in the tropics, where the dance and jollity are no private matters, there is something sterile in commercialization. No doubt to the natives there is little difference between a woman giving herself for gain and a man dancing for the money there is in it without the whole group becoming part of the performance: the dancer feels that his purchaser, his public, is cold and unresponsive. And so it seemed to me at this dance. They finished, they expected their money, they got it and departed, and there seemed something immoral to me in the exploitation of their emotions.

What a different lot they were one night when I visited the little house they rented in Suva while waiting for the Atua to arrive from New Zealand and take them on to Samoa. There it was song and dance out of sheer ecstasy: life was so full. They were again in their home atmosphere, and their voices only helped swell the volume of song which issued forth everywhere about,—an electrification of humanity all along the line, in village after village.

They hung about the pier before sailing for Samoa till after midnight, singing sentimental songs and hobnobbing with the Fijians. The Fijian constable joined them with a flute, and the lot of them tried to drown out the voices of the natives loading and unloading cargo. Not until notice was given that the ship was about to get under steam did they think of going aboard. They looked as though ready for rest, but by no means dissipated, by no means weary. The spell of song was still upon them.

When we woke next morning, we were tied up to a pier at the foot of the hills of Levuka. But I have already dwelt upon the features of this former capital, and am only concerned with it here as it was reflected in the eyes of the Samoans. Levuka to me was one thing; to them it was quite another. The moldy little stores afforded them more interest than the village to the left, or the shipyards to the right which were to my Western notions commendable.

I followed in the wake of these gliding natives as we left the steamer. They looked neither to the right nor to the left, but wended their ways, like cattle in the pasture, straight toward the shops. Into one and out the other they went, bargaining, pricing, buying little trinkets and simple cloths, chatting with the Fijians as though friends of old.

Setu's sweetheart and the pretty mother of the young American citizen, who was left in the care of the fat "chaperon," set off by themselves through the one and only street of Levuka. It was obvious that they were quite aware of whither they were going,—so direct was their journey. My curiosity was roused and I wandered along with them. They said never a word to me, nor objected to my presence. We turned to the left, off into a side street that began to insinuate its way along the bed of a stream lined with wooden huts and shacks. Some of these were fairly well constructed, with verandas, like the houses of a miniature American town, garlanded in flowers. Just above the village, where the stream began to emerge from behind a rocky little gorge, the two women turned in at a gate to a private cottage. A bridge led across the stream to the little house, the veranda of which extended slightly over the stream. Beneath, in a corner formed by a projecting boulder, lay a quiet little pool of water—clear, cool, fresh and deep.

Without asking permission from the owners, the women began slowly, cautiously to wade into the pool. Seeing that I had no thought of going, they put modesty aside, slipped the loose garments down to their waists and immersed themselves up to their necks. One of them was tattooed from below her breasts to her hips; the other's breasts alone bore these designs. They dipped and rose, splashed and spluttered, but there was none of that intimacy with their own flesh which is the essence of cleanliness and passion in our world. There was no soap, no scrubbing. It was something objective, almost, a contact with nature like looking at a landscape or listening to a storm.

Presently some of the inmates of the cottage, evidently well-to-do Fijians, came out to greet them. I could not tell whether they were friends or not, but the women were invited in,—and I turned into town through back roads and alleys that were just like the back roads and alleys anywhere in the world.

That afternoon we steamed out again for Apia, Samoa. The sea was disturbed somewhat and gave us various sensations; but the vile odors that threatened my nautical pride never changed.

Most of the Samoans were under the weather. They did not look cheerful, and all song was gone out of them. Setu and his sweetheart were here even more inseparable than on the Niagara. She was not very well and stretched out on the bench on the edge of which he took his seat. In her squeamish condition she could hardly be expected to pay much attention to proprieties she had acquired in less than a year's residence in America. Her sprawly bare feet on several occasions made too bold an exit from beneath the loose Mother-Hubbard gown she wore, and each time Setu would draw the skirt farther over them, affectionately pressing them with his hand. This one instance, exceptional as it was, made me notice more consciously the absence of that public intimacy which is the bane of the prude with us. Not all the charm of the tropics which is so real to me can take the place of the cleanliness of the West, the tenderness of clean men and women in public, to be observed even on our crowded subways, the loveliness of white skin tinged with pink and scented with the essence of flowers.

I did not see them again before we arrived at Samoa the next day; the sea was too choppy. But in the afternoon Setu came out with a pillow held aloft over his head, and declared he would take a nap. There was childish glee in his face at the prospect, and he stretched out on the hard deck in perfect ease. And long after I ceased to figure in his fancies, the beaming, sparkling eyes and merry grin seemed to light up the soul within him.

Toward sundown we passed the first island of the group,—Savaii, the largest. It lay at our left, Mua Peak emitting a sluggish smoke from reaches beyond the depth of the waters which had nearly submerged it, and as the sea made furious charges into blow-holes or half-submerged caverns, the earth spit back the invading waters with an easy contempt.

At our right lay the island of Manono, much smaller, and nearer our course. Shy Samoan villages hid in little ravines, almost afraid to show their faces.

Shortly after eight o'clock we neared the island of Upolu. The troupe of Samoans came out on deck with the eagerness in their eyes that marks such arrivals at every port of the world. The lights of the village of Apia pricked the delicate evening haze. One strong, steady lamp, like a planet, shone from above the others. Setu called to me eagerly, his right hand pointing toward it.

"That is from Vailima, Stevenson's home," he said, with some pride.

When at last we anchored just outside the reefs before Apia, these natives, who had grown close to one another during the year of their pilgrimage, began bidding one another farewell before slipping back to the little separate grooves they called home. The women kissed one another, cheek touching cheek at an angle, a practice common both at meeting (talofa) and at parting (tofa). But with the men they only shook hands. Then, clambering over into canoes, they were borne across the reefs to their homes. And as long as Polynesia is Polynesia there will echo the stories of this journey to the land of the white man and all children will know that what the white man said about his lands is true.

2

The reader who has never entered a strange port nor come home from foreign lands will not be able to imagine the psychological effect of my entry of Samoa. Not only did the thousands of eyes of the natives seem to turn their gaze upon me, but it seemed, and I was quite sure, that at least two thousand pale faces with as many bayonets were fixed upon me. Samoa was under occupation. I asked the captain of the forces what I could do to avoid trouble.

"See that you don't get shot," he said. I assured him there was nothing nearer my heart's desire, and, seeing that I looked harmless, he ventured to reassure me: "Oh, just keep away from the wireless. That's all." I had come to see the natives, not electric gymnastics, so I found it very easy to keep away from the wireless.

What there was of Apia was essentially European and lay along the waterfront. Here stood the three-story hotel, built and until then managed by Germans. Diagonally across from it and nearer the water's edge, was a two-story ramshackle building even then run by Germans. The little barber to whom I had been directed spoke with a most decided German accent. He cut and shampooed my hair, but let me walk out with as much of a souse on top of my head as I ever had in a shower-bath. Wherever I went were Germans,—and yet they said the islands were under occupation. Turn to the right and there, back off the street within a small compound that seemed to lie flat and low, was a German school still being conducted by black-bearded German priests. But to the left, within the dark-red fence, stood the dark-red buildings of the German Plantation Company, closed, and the little building that once was the German Club had become the British Club; while at the other end of the street were the office buildings of the military staff, where once ruled the German militarists. In between, in a little building a block or two behind the waterfront, was the printing-office,—where, strange to say, the daily paper was still being printed in both German and English. With the few structures that filled in the gaps between these outposts we had small concern. They were the nests of traders, the haven of so-called beach-combers and the barracks and missionary compounds. And alien Samoa is at an end.

Mindful of the mild instructions not to get myself shot, I took as little interest in the details of occupation as was compatible with my sense of freedom; but this course was precarious, for at the time any one who was not with us was against us. However, details of such differences must be reserved for a later chapter. Here we are interested in Samoa itself. But in my very interest in the place I struck a snag, for every other day Germans were being deported or coraled for attempting to stir up a native uprising. Still, inasmuch as I could not acquire the language in so short a time, I felt secure, and took to the paths that led to the Stone Age as a Dante without a love-affair to guide him.

The island is hemmed in by coral reefs on the edge of which the waves break, spreading in foam and gliding quietly toward shore. As they sport in the brilliant sunlight, it seems as though the sea were calling back the life lost to it through evolution. The tall, gaunt palms which lean toward the sea, bow in a humble helplessness. There, a quarter of a mile out, upon the unseen reefs, lies the iron skeleton of the Adler, the German man-of-war which was wrecked on the memorable day in 1889. Such seems to be the fate of the Germans: even their skeletons outlive disaster. But the sea has been the protector of the natives. It would be interesting to speculate as to what course events about the South Seas would have taken had not that hurricane intervened. The natives are indifferent to such speculations; for, as far as they were concerned, one turn was as good as another. Borne over the swelling waves from island drift to island drift, the ups and downs of eternity seem to leave no great changes in their lives.

Roaming along the waterfront to the left of Apia with the sun near high noon, all by myself, I met with nothing to disturb the utter sweetness and glory of life about. I wavered between moods of exquisite exhilaration and deep depression. Bound by the encircling consciousness of the occupation, the sense of wrong done these natives who had neither asked for our civilization nor invited us to squabble over their "bones," I felt that but for the presence of the white man this would have been the loveliest land in the world. For here one becomes aware of nature as something altogether different from nature anywhere else. That distant pleading of the sea; the gentle yielding of the palms to the landborn breezes,—there was much more than peace and ease; there was absolute harmony. But where was man?

I became restless. Nature was not sufficient. I went to seek out man, for at that hour there was none of him anywhere about. I was, for all intents and purposes, absolutely the only human being on that island. Every one else had taken to cool retreats. But where should I go? I wondered. I knew no one, and the sense of loneliness I had for a while forgotten came back to me with a rush. For a moment I was again in civilization, again in a world of fences and locked doors. "I will go and look up Setu," I thought. "He promised to guide me about Samoa. I have his address. I'll look up Setu." So I turned back toward the hills and in among the palm groves, where I could see the huts of the village of Mulinuu, where Setu lived.

When I arrived I realized why I had suddenly become conscious of my loneliness. Throughout the village there wasn't a soul abroad. The domes of thatch resting on circles of smooth pillars were deserted, it seemed, and the fresh coolness that coursed freely within their shade was untasted. Nowhere upon the broad, grassy fields beneath the palms was there a walking thing; and I was a total stranger. It was slightly bewildering, as though I were in a graveyard, or a village from which the inhabitants had all gone. I approached one of the huts and found, to my satisfaction, that there was a human being there. It was a woman, attending to her household duties. She was just under the eaves on the outside, beside the floor of the hut, which was like a circular stage raised a foot or two above the ground, and paved with loose shingles from the shore. I hardly knew how to approach her, not thinking she might know my language.

"Good afternoon," she said in perfect English. "Sit down." The shock was pleasant. So there were no fences or doors to social intercourse in Samoa, after all. Still, I must find Setu. I asked her where I could locate his home. Before directing me, she chatted a while and assured me that I could go to any one of the huts about and make myself comfortable. I was not to hesitate, as it was the custom of the country and in no way unusual. She was a fine-looking woman, robust and tall, genial and attentive, as housewifely a person as could be found anywhere. I have since had occasion to talk with many a housewife in New Zealand and Australia when searching for private quarters and cannot say that their manners, their dress, their regard for a stranger's welfare in any way exceeded those of this woman who had nothing to offer me but rest and no wish for reward but my content.

Taking her directions, I turned across the village to where she said Setu could be found. Beneath the shade of a palm squatted a group of men who when they spied me called for me to come over to them. Had I not been on curiosity bent, I should have regarded their request as sheer impudence, for when I arrived they wanted me to employ them as guides. It was amusing. Instead of running after hire, they commanded the stranger to come to them. It was too comfortable under the spreading palm branches. I told them that I had arranged with Setu to guide me and was in search of him. They began running Setu down. He was untrustworthy, they assured me, and would charge me too high a price. Then they asked me what my business was, what Setu had said, when he was going,—everything imaginable. But never an inch would they move to show me the way to Setu's house. I wandered about for a while, inquiring of one stray individual and another, but no one had seen Setu, and at last I learned that he had left the village early that morning for his father's place, far inland, and would not return. Setu had gone back on me. He had promised to call for me with his horse and buggy and convey me over the island. But Setu had forsaken me, and there was nothing to do but to make the best of the day right there.

Taking the word of the well-spoken woman, I approached the most attractive-looking hut, where sat a number of people roundabout the pillars. It was a mansion-like establishment even to my inexperienced judgment of huts. It was roofed with corrugated iron instead of thatch, and the pillars were unusually straight and smooth. The raised floor was very neatly spread with selected, smooth, flat stones four to five inches in diameter, and framed with a rim of concrete. Fine straw mats lay like rugs over a polished parquet floor at all angles to one another, and straw drop curtains hung rolled up under the eaves, to be lowered in case of rain or hurricane. The floor space must have been at least thirty-five feet in diameter, and it was plain that each inhabitant occupied his own section of the hut round the outer circle.

I was cordially greeted and invited to rest, which I did by sitting on the ground with my legs out, and my back to a pillar for support. From the quiet and decorum it was evident that the householders were entertaining guests. Each couple or family sat upon its own mats. There were twelve adults and three children. It happened that the man who greeted me and bade me be seated was the guest of honor, a gentleman from Rarotanga, passing through Samoa on his way to Fiji. He was a very refined-looking individual, and made me feel that the Rarotangans were a superior race, but the contrary is true. However, his regular features and courtly manners were a distinction which might well have led to such a supposition. His handsome wife, who sat with him, was as retiring as a Japanese woman, and as considerate of his comfort.

The others were set in pairs all round the hut. At the extreme left were two women, sewing; opposite us, a man and woman apportioning the victuals; to my right, a man and a woman grinding the ava root preparatory to the making of the drink. Farther way squatted a very fat woman, with barely a covering over her breasts, which were full as though she were in the nursing-stage. The children moved about freely neither disturbing nor being curbed. In the center of the company sat two men, one evidently the head of the family, with his back up against a pillar, the other his equal in some relationship.

The dinner was being served by a portly individual, a man who could not have been exactly a servant, yet who did not act as though he were a member of the family. He passed round the ample supply of fish, meats, and vegetables on enamel plates, his services always being acknowledged graciously. No one looked at or noticed his neighbor, but indulged with the aid of spoon or finger as he saw fit, and had any made a faux pas there would have been none the wiser. That, I thought, was true politeness.

Dinner over, the remains were removed and each person leaned back against the nearest pillar. After a slight pause, the eldest man, he in the center of the hut, clapped his hands, and uttered a gentle sound, as one satisfied would say: "Well! Let's get down to business." But it was nothing so serious or so material as that. It was ava-drinking time. The polished cocoanut bowl was passed round, by the same old waiter, to the man whose name was called aloud by the head of the household, and each time all the rest clapped hands two or three times to cheer his cup. It was like the Japanese method of "ringing" for a servant, not like our applause. Then fruits were passed around. Cocoanuts, soft and ripe, the outer shell like the skin of an alligator pear and easily cut with an ordinary knife, were first in order, after which the companion of the man in the middle of the hut, like a magician on the stage, drew out of mysterious regions an enormous pineapple which may have been thirty inches in circumference. It might have had elephantiasis, for all I knew, but it was the cause of the only bit of disharmony I had noticed during the entire time I rested with them. The man to whom it fell to dispense its juicy contents—he who had sat unobtrusively beside the head of the house now found it necessary to stretch his legs in order the better to carve the fruity porcupine. The shock to my sense of form the moment I caught sight of those legs was enough to dissipate my greediest interest in the pineapple. They were twice the size of the fruit, and as knotty. He was suffering from elephantiasis of the legs, poor man,—a disease, according to the encyclopÆdia, "dependent on chronic lymphatic obstruction, and characterized by hypertrophy of the skin and subcutaneous tissue." Morbid persons seem to enjoy taking away with them photographs of people affected by this hideous disease in various parts of the body, but it was enough for me that I saw this one case; and sorry enough was I that I saw it at that quiet, peaceful hut, from which I should otherwise have carried away the loveliest of memories.

For as soon as the meal was over, and the ava-drinking at an end, pleasures more intellectual were in order. Neighbors began to arrive, including the fine woman who had urged me to rest wherever I wished. As each new guest appeared, he passed round on the outside and shook hands with those to whom he was introduced, finally finding a quiet corner.

When the interruptions ceased, the head of the house began to speak in a low, reflective tone of voice. All the others relaxed, as do men and women over their cigarettes. My Tongan neighbor acted as interpreter for me, being the only person present who could speak English. The head of the house was telling some family legend, the point of which was the friendship between his forefathers and the fathers of this Tongan guest. Then one at a time, quietly, in a subdued tone, each one present expressed his gratitude for the hospitality extended, or recited some family reminiscence. There wasn't the slightest affectation, nor the semblance of an argument. Here, then, was Thoreau's principle of hospitality actually being practised. As each one spoke he gazed out upon the open sky decorated with the broad green leaves of the palm. Sometimes the listeners smiled at some witticism, but most of the time they were interested in a sober way. Last of all arose the companion of the head of the house, upon his heavy, elephantine legs, and in a dramatic manner—probably made to seem more so by the tragic distortion of his limbs—related a story, several times emphasizing a generalization by a sweep of the hands toward the open world about.

THE STREET ALONG THE WATERFRONT OF APIA, SAMOA

I THOUGHT THE VILLAGE BACK OF APIA, SAMOA, WAS DESERTED, BUT IT WAS ONLY THE NOON HOUR

But I couldn't help contrasting in my own mind the little gathering on the shingle-paved floor of that corrugated iron hut with the more elaborate club that changed its name from German to British with no little hauteur. More than once I wished that I had had command of the language of those people in the hut where allegory, mixed with superstition but seasoned with gentle hospitality—and not rum—was the order of the day.

Weary of refusing booze and more booze, I set off for the shore. Though military order forbade either natives or Germans or any one else without a permit to be out after ten o'clock, I had had no difficulty in securing a permit to roam about at will, day or night. The new military Inspector of Police strolled out with me and we took to the road that led out of Apia to the left, past the barracks, past the school, and the church, past all the crude replicas of our civilization.

"Oh, how I loathe it all!" said Heasley to me. "God, what wouldn't I give to be back with my wife and kiddies! This everlasting boozing, this mingling with people whom I wouldn't recognize in Wellington, being herded with the riffraff of the world. They talk of the lovely maidens. Tell me, Greenbie, have you seen any here you'd care to mess about with? The tropics!—rot!"

I saw that I had to deal with a frightfully homesick man, and there was no point in running counter to him. The fact that to me the tropics were lovely only when seen as an objective thing, not as something to feel a part of, would have made little impression on his mind. He was condemned to an indefinite sojourn, whereas I was foot-loose, had come of my own free will, and was going as soon as I had had enough of it. To him the daily round of drink and cheap disputes, the longing for his wife and kiddies, the heat, the mosquitos, the mold, the cheap beds and unvaried fare, the weeks during which the British troops had virtually camped on the beach in the steady downpouring tropical rains; the inability to dream his way into appreciation of South Sea life; the necessity of looking upon the natives as possible rebels; suspicions of the few Germans there, suspicions of every new-comer, suspicions of even the death-dealing sun,—no wonder there was nothing romantic about it to him!

But as we wandered along, chatting in an intimate way, as only men gone astray from home will chat when they meet on the highways of the world, he seemed to grow more cheerful. Time and again he told me what a relief I was to him, how being able really to talk freely with me was balm to his troubled spirit. I knew that an hour after my departure he would forget all about me, that there was nothing permanent in his regard, that I really meant nothing to him beyond an immediate release for his pent-up mind,—but I felt that he was sincere.

As we kicked our way along the dusty road we came to a stretch where the palm-trees stood wide apart. The smooth waters covered the reefs, and a million moonbeams danced over them. Within the palm groves camp-fires blazed beneath domes of moon-splattered thatch, and from all directions deep, clear voices quickened the night air. We of the Northern lands do not know what communal life is. We move in throngs, we crowd the theaters, we crowd the summer resorts,—but still we do not know what communal life is. We are separate icicles compared with the people of the tropics. Only to one adrift at night within a little South Sea village is the meaning of human commonalty revealed. It seemed to touch Heasley as nothing had done before. After our little conversation he appeared relieved and receptive. We wandered about till long after midnight, long after the village had sung itself to sleep, even then reluctant to take to our musty beds.

Thus did one day pass in Samoa, and every day is like the other, and my tale is told.

4

I tapped one man after another in Samoa for some personal recollections of Stevenson, but without success. At last I heard of an American trader who had been an intimate friend of R. L. S. and knew more about him than any other. So to him I went. He was a round-headed, red-faced, bald individual in the late fifties, deeply engrossed in the sumptuous accumulations he had made during more than a quarter-century of residence in Samoa. His reactions to my declaration of interest in Stevenson made me think he was turning to lock his safe and order his guard, but instead he really opened the safe and dismissed all pretense. In other words, he realized, it seemed to me, that he had another chance of adding luster not to Stevenson, but to himself. Stevenson he dismissed with, "Well, you know, after all he was just like other men. Often he was disagreeable, ill-tempered," etc. The thing worth while was the fact that he had written a book about Stevenson, in which he had exhausted all he knew of the man, so why did I not read that and not bother him about it! I felt apologetic, almost inclined to bow myself out, backward, when he announced that he too had written stories of the South Seas. My interest was whetted. I asked to be shown. He drew from among his bills and invoices a packet of manuscripts, and handed one to me to read. I thought of Setu and his enthusiasm at the recognition at sea of the light from Vailima, and felt that, as far as Stevenson's own life went, Setu was, to me at least, more important.

Notwithstanding all the cynics who laugh at those who come to Samoa to climb to Stevenson's grave, I was determined to make the ascent. I could get no one to make it with me. At five o'clock in the morning I mustered what energy I had left from the North, ready to spend it all for the sake of seeing Stevenson's grave. By six, the wind was already warm and dragged behind it heavy rain-clouds. Hot and brain-fagged, I pressed on, my body pushing listlessly forward while my mind battled with the temptation to turn back. Near the end of European Apia I turned toward the hills, into a wide avenue cut through the growths of shaggy palms. Suddenly opening out from the main street, it as suddenly closes up, an oblong that dissipates in a narrow, irregular roadway farther on. It was too overgrown to indicate any great usefulness, yet in the history of roads, none, I believe, is more unique. In the days when Samoa was the scene of cheap international squabbles among England, France, Germany, and America, Stevenson, the Scotsman, mindful of the fate of Scotland and of the similarity between his adopted and his native land, stood by the natives as against the foreign powers (Germany in particular). He took up the challenge for Mataafa, courageously cuddled these children while in prison, and won their everlasting good-will. Later, as a mark of gratitude, they decided voluntarily to build a wide road to Vailima, Stevenson's home. Their ambitions did not live long. The road was never finished. But this is indicative not of diminished gratitude, but of the overwhelming hopelessness of their situation in face of foreign pressure and native temperature.

For everything in the tropics seems on the verge of exhaustion, a keen enthusiasm in life which finds its ebb before it has reached high tide. Only a supreme endeavor, a will sharper than nature, can overcome the spirit of non-resistance which condemns native life from very birth. And it was the remnant of determination bred in another climate that carried me on toward the remains of the object of that gratitude which this road symbolized.

Vailima was four miles from Apia, hidden within a rich tropical growth well up the mountain side. Half the time I rested in the shade, taking my cue from my idol that it was better to travel than to arrive. No one was about, except here and there a child in search of fruit dropped from the tall trees. Presently I came to a set of wooden buildings on the road which upon investigation turned out to be the temporary barracks for the guard of Colonel Logan, commander of the forces of occupation. The soldiers directed me most cordially to a path near the barracks, and there a board sign announced the way to "Stevenson's Grave."

Crossing a creek and turning to the right, I found myself immediately at the foot of Mount Vaea. At this juncture lay a small concrete pool obviously belonging to the cottage, well-preserved and clean. So was the path upward. Strange contrasts here, for both pool and path were the result of the private interest of the German Governor of Samoa who, despite Stevenson's bitter opposition to German possession of the islands, had generously had the path cleared and widened so that lovers of the great man might visit his tomb with ease. It had been neglected for ten years until this German reclaimed it.

For a decade the grave lay untended. At the moment of death, the silence is deep. The pain is too fresh. Out of very love neglect is justifiable, for it is the train of dejected mourners who cannot think of niceties. But then come the "knockers at the gate," they who know nothing of the frailties of men and revel in an immortality that is memory.

I paused frequently during that half-hour climb. Cooing doves called to one another understandingly across the death-like stillness which filled the valley below. From the direction of Apia came the sound of the lali, which seemed only to quicken mystery into being. I breathed more heavily. There, alone on the slopes of that peak, with the only thing that makes it memorable beneath the sod on the summit, I felt strangely in touch with the dead. The isolation gave distinction to him who had been laid there, which no monument, however superb, can give in the crowded graveyard. The personality of the departed hovers round in the silence.

Still, the thought of death itself is alien here. Fear is barren. One climbs on with an easy, smiling recognition of the summit of all things,—not as death, but as life. Oh, the sweet silence that muffles all!

A strange relapse into the ordinary came to me as I reached the top. I took a picture of the tomb, gazed out across the hazy blue world about,—and thought of nothing. I was not disappointed, nor sad. Had I found myself sinking, dying, I believe that it would not have ruffled my emotions any more than the flight of a bird leaves ripples in the air. Below, five miles away, the waves broke upon the reefs and spread in smooth foam which reached endlessly toward the shore. "It is better to travel than to arrive," they seemed to say to me across the void.

The red hibiscus was in bloom around the tomb. A sweet-scented yellow flower made the air heavy with its rich perfume. The trees speckled the simple concrete casing over the grave with their restless little shadow leaves. The spot was cool and free from growths. And it was, then, a symbol of a quarter of a century made real.

Glad did I live and gladly die
And I laid me down with a will.

Savage, child, romancer, literary stylist,—all have been under the influence of this wandering Scotsman, and the manner of showing him love and gratitude has been not in imitation only. At Monterey in California he was nursed by an old Frenchman through a long period of illness; in semi-savage Samoa men untutored in our codes of affection beat not a path but a road to his door, and carried his body up the steep slope of Mount Vaea. And the month before I stood beside his tomb, the ashes of his wife and devoted helpmate were deposited beside him by his stepdaughter, who had journeyed all the way from California to unite their remains.

Tusitala, the tale-teller, the natives called him, and in the sheer music of that strange word one senses something of the regard it was meant to convey. And in the years to come, when Samoans become a nation in the Pacific, part of the Polynesian group, Tusitala will doubtless be one of the heroes, tales of whose beneficence will light the way for little Polynesians growing to manhood.

It was becoming too hot up there on the peak for me before breakfast-time was over, so I slipped down into the valley. At the barracks the soldiers invited me to have a bite with them. The simple porridge, the crude utensils, the bare benches would elsewhere after so long a walk and so steep a climb have been a Godsend; but here, in the tropics, it seemed that more would have been a waste of human life. The sergeant-at-arms asked me if I should like to have some breadfruit. He stepped out into the yard and gathered a round, luscious melon-like fruit which, when cut, opened the doors of alimentary bliss to me. The trees grow in bisexual pairs, male and female, the female tree bearing the fruit.

The sergeant then took me to Vailima, Stevenson's last home, now the residence of the governor-general. It was, of course, stripped of everything which once was Stevenson's, and had acquired wings and porticos, gaunt and disproportioned. I could not work up any sentimental regret at this change, for that is what Stevenson himself would have wished. The best way to preserve a thing is to keep it growing. Stevenson worked here for four years; others may tamper with it for four hundred years without completely obliterating the character given it by its first maker.

When I entered I was somewhat surprised at the hangings on the walls. Pictures of the kaiser, pretty scenes along the Rhine, German castles,—what had they to do with Stevenson? what with Colonel Logan and British occupation? The chambers are so large and the woodwork is so somber that these pictures fairly shrieked out at one, like a flock of eagles in high altitudes. I felt almost guilty, myself, simply for being in the presence of such enemy decorations, and remarked about them to my guide.

"The colonel won't touch them," he said, respectfully. "They are the property of the German Governor, and till the disposition of the islands is finally settled, the colonel won't move them. He's a soldier, y'know."

We came out again upon the veranda just in time to see Colonel and Mrs. Logan arrive in their trap. He was tall, straight, an icy chill of reserve in his bearing. Mrs. Logan was a pretty young woman, as warm and cordial as he was stiff. He preceded her up the steps and was saluted by the sergeant with the explanation of my presence.

"Am showing this gentleman round a bit," he said.

"Has he had a look round?" said the colonel, perfunctorily, saluted stiffly, and passed by as though I didn't exist. As Mrs. Logan came up behind she suppressed a smile that threatened to make her face still more charming, and the two passed within.

I smiled to myself. How should I have been received had Stevenson come up those steps that day? To the colonel there was nothing in my journey to the tomb. Nor was there anything in it to the soldiers at the barracks. Yet the fact that I had been there made me one of them.

"How'd ye like it?" asked a soldier on my return, with the same manner as though I had gone to see a cock-fight. "Blaim me if Oi'd climb that yer 'ill on a day as 'ot as this to see a dead man's grave."

They asked me if I'd like to take a swim in the stream Stevenson liked so well, and on the strength of my great interest three of them got leave to accompany me. They winked to me when the sergeant agreed. We wandered along, jumping fences, crossing a grassy slope, and cutting through a spare woods. The bamboo-trees creaked like rusty hinges. Cocoa plantations stood ripe for picking. The luscious mango kept high above our reach, so that we were compelled to devise means of getting at it. The soldiers seemed concerned about my seeing everything, tasting everything, learning everything the place afforded. We chatted sociably, plunging about in the stream, with only a few stray natives looking on. Then we made our way back as leisurely as possible, they being in no hurry to return to the barracks. How I got back to Apia I haven't the faintest recollection.

5

I had set out to see the world without any definite notion of whither I was drifting. I had bartered the liquid sunshine of Hawaii for Fiji's humid shade, and twisted a day in a knot between Suva and Apia so that I hardly knew whether or not Fiji was more devilishly hot than Samoa. And then for four days I endured the stench of ripening bananas in the hold of a resurrected vessel which, if ships are feminine, as sailors seem to believe, was decidedly beyond the age of spinsterhood. I was headed for New Zealand. Little wonder, then, that when I found that we had finally arrived with our olfactory senses still sane and were about to land in a real country with real cities and a social life dangerously near perfection, I felt as though I were coming to after ether.

When I suddenly found myself alone on the streets of Auckland, a sense of the icy chill of reserve in civilization came over me. The weeks in the tropics were of the past. There, though the faces were more than strange to me and the speech quite unintelligible, there was a sense of human kinship which stole from man to man through the still air. There was the lali thumping its way across the valley; the chatter of voices by day, the mutter of voices by night when the people gathered beneath their thatched roofs; the gradual infusion of native melody with the swish of palms and the hiss of the sea; call answering call across the village; songs with that deep, primitive harmony which effects a ferment of emotion not in one's heart, but in the pit of the stomach. In such a place, the word alone has no meaning. One cannot be a stark outsider. Everything is done so freely and sociably that even the stranger, despite thousands of years of restraint in civilization, merges into an at-one-ment known to no group in our world.

Social life in New Zealand (as in all white communities) contained no such admixture. Not even on Sunday, on which day I landed, did the crowds that sauntered up and down the street, present any kindred closeness. People just sauntered back and forth across the three or four business blocks known as Queens Street. The sweeps and curves and windings which were its offshoots made a short thoroughfare look picturesque, but they were just flourishes. They did not lead to anything. And one immediately returned to Queens Street.

There, the wheeled traffic having been withdrawn, the people leaving church flooded the wide way, coursing up and down in what seemed to me an utterly aimless journey between the monument at the upper fork in the street and the piers at its foot. As a white man's city goes, in the three-story structures and spacious business fronts, and the massing of architecture tapering in an occasional turret, there was stability enough in the appearance of things.

There were jolly flirtations, girls singly and in pairs, some mere children in short skirts, gadding about with eyes on young men whom they doubtless knew, and of whom they seemed in eternal pursuit. Groups gathered for political or religious argument; platitudes and pleasantries were exchanged, some interesting, some dull, seldom truly cordial. A vague suspicion one of another was manifest in every relationship.

Suddenly the crowd vanished. A few persistent ones hung about the lower extremity of the street or lurked about the piers, spooning. The street became deserted. Not a sound from anywhere. No joyous singing under the eaves, no flickering lamp-lights beneath thatched roofs. Blinds drawn, doors locked. Sunday evening in civilization! I had returned.

CHAPTER VI
THE APHELION OF BRITAIN

1

There are no holy places in New Zealand, none of the worn and curious trappings of forgotten civilizations to search out and to revere. There are no signposts which lead the wanderer along, despite himself, in search of sacred spots; no names which make life worth while. Whom shall he try to see? Is there a Romain Rolland or a Shaw, or an Emerson to whom he could bow in that reverence which invites the soul rather than bends the knee?

There are only boiling fountains and snow-packed ranges and wild-waste places to which neither man nor beast go willingly. Yet an unknown urge pushes one on, that urge which from time immemorial has impelled saint in search of salvation, and age in search of youth, as well as youth in search of adventure, to the most inaccessible reaches of the world. All of us bring back accounts of what we've seen, but which of us can answer why we went?

First impressions in older countries are generally confusing. Ages of accumulations pile up, covered with the dust of centuries which has gone through innumerable processes of sifting. But the stranger in the Antipodes is plunged into a bath of youth. Every aspect of the country is young. The volcanoes are mostly extinct, but about them lurks the warmth of the camp fire just died down. In mountain, bush, and plain something of the childhood of Mother Earth is still felt; at most, an adolescence, rich in possibilities. One almost feels that the very rivers are only the remnants of the receding floods after the rising of the land from beneath the sea. There is nothing old anywhere. Instead of being disappointed at the apparent paucity of man-made products, one is greatly surprised that so little and young a country should have so much. There is room, much room, ample acres which lie fallow, the winds of opportunity blowing over them, wild with abandon.

New Zealand, as I said, was a kind of resting-place. It was the point where the lines of interest in the native peoples of the Pacific, and those of the efforts of the white men, intersected, just as later I was to find a point of intersection between the white men and the Orientals at Hongkong. For here the new social life of the South Pacific, and the remnants of the old races of the Pacific equally divide the attention.

I had some little difficulty locating Auckland from the steamer, so many suburbs littered the forty miles of irregular bluff which surrounds the harbor. The homes upon the hills seemed reserved and unambitious. There were no streams of smoke from factory and mill. One felt, at the moment of arrival, that were it morning, noon, or night, whatever the season, Auckland would still be the same, and New Zealand would continue to be proud of the resemblance the youngest of its cities has for its parent. All seemed quiet, restful and inactive.

If all these were inactive, not so the human elements. Their rumblings on localisms were to be heard even before we landed. As a new-comer, I was made aware of Wellington, the capital, and its winds; of the city of Christchurch and its plains; of prides and jealousies which provincial patriots acclaimed in good-natured playfulness. Dunedin's raininess was said to have been a special providence for the benefit of the Scotch who have isolated themselves there. The wonders of this place and the beauty of that broke through the mists of my imagination like tiny star-holes through the night.

2

I had returned to civilization, and though all my instincts settled into an assurance which was comforting, a feeling that dengue fever was no more, that damp and moldy beds and smell of copra would not again be mingled with my food and slumber, still, I knew I was not a part of it. Almost immediately my mind began moving spiral-like, outward and upward, to escape. I was to do it all in a month. I was to see Auckland, with its neighbor, Mt. Eden, an extinct volcano; I was to visit the other large cities,—vaguely their existence was becoming real to me,—I was to penetrate at least some of New Zealand's dangerous bush, to see the primitive-civilized lives of the native Maories. But, strange to say, return to civilization had the identical effect on me that return to primitive life is said to have on the white man. It entered my being in the form of indolence. I did not want to move. I wanted to rest. To stay a while in that place, to make myself part of the life of the city, to remain fixed, became a burning desire with me. And days went by without my being able to stir myself on again.

The life in the Dominion was conducive to ease and dreaming. Nobody seemed in any hurry about anything, least of all about taking you in. Every one went upon a way long worn down by the tread of familiar feet. The conflicts of pioneer aggressiveness were over. The differences between the aboriginal and the foreign elements were lost in the overpowering crowding in of the alien. The stone and wooden structures, the railways and the piers, the homes wandering along over the hills as far as the eye could see, completely concealed that which originally was New Zealand.

I spent one month wandering up and down Auckland's one main street, and I can assure you it was like no other main street in the world, except those of every other city in New Zealand. There were the carts and the cars by day, and the clearing of the pavement of every vehicle for pedestrian parades by night. There were the carnivals and the fÊtes on Queens Street, and on every other royal highway during the summer months; and during the two hours which New Zealanders require for lunch, there was nothing to be done but to lunch too. And then on Sunday nights there was the confusion of cults and isms each with its panacea for spiritual and social ills. Nobody was expected to do anything but go to church; hence the street cars didn't run during church hours, and the bathing-places were closed. And after ten o'clock it was as impossible to get a cup of tea outside one's own home as it is to get whisky in an open saloon in New York to-day.

On the Niagara I had been assured by a young lady from New Zealand that we Americans didn't know what home life was and that she would show me the genuine thing when I got to her little country. She did, and I have been most grateful to her for it. It was sober and clean and quiet, and I accepted with great satisfaction every invitation offered me, because it was a thousand times better than being alone on the deserted streets. But the good Lord was wise when He made provision for one Sunday a week, as His human creation could hardly endure it more frequently; and that is what one might say of New Zealand home life. It is all that is good and wholesome, all that is necessary for the rearing of unobstreperous young, but red blood should not be made to run like syrup, though I quite agree with my New Zealand friend that it should not be kept at the boiling-point, either. Our evenings were usually spent in quiet chatting on safe generalities interspersed with home songs and nice cocoa; and at ten o'clock we would separate. I hope that my New Zealand friends will not feel hurt at what I say. Let them put it down to my wild-Americanism. But home life on a Sunday evening was not worth going all the way diagonally across the Pacific to taste.

Hence, a month in Auckland was quite enough for me. By that time the call of the mountains and lakes had come to me, and in natural beauty New Zealand can rival any other country of its size I have ever been to, except Japan. In answering that call I accepted the swagger's account of how life should be lived and took to the open road. In the year that followed I filled my memory with treasures that cannot be classified in any summary. From Auckland in the North Island to Dunedin in the South Island I journeyed on foot through three long months, zigzagging my way virtually from coast to coast, dreaming away night after night along the great Waikato River, holding taut my soul in the face of the mysteries of the hot-springs districts, and quenching feverish experiences upon the shores of placid cold lakes and beneath snow-covered peaks of mountain ranges thirteen thousand feet high; gripping my reason during long night tramps in the uninhabited bush (forests) or in Desolation Gully, forty miles from nowhere. I know what wild life in New Zealand is, as well as tame. It is not all that it used to be when men left their home lands for that new start in life which Heaven knows every man is entitled to, considering what our notions of childhood are and the eagerness of man to pounce upon any one who has not reached insurmountable success.

In between I saw the courageous struggles these selfsame men have gone through and are still enduring in order to make of the whole of New Zealand what it is as yet only in parts. Those parts are rich farm lands, with swiftly scouting motor-cars used by great capitalist-farmers who have more than one station to look after. It is a strange phenomenon of New Zealand life that the small farm towns are generally much more alert and progressive than the big cities. The New Zealanders build houses that look like transplanted suburbs from around New York, and bring to their villages some of the love of plant life that the city-dweller is soon too sophisticated to share. They draw out to themselves the moving-picture theaters, which are now the all-possessing rage in the Dominion as elsewhere, and read the latest periodicals with the interest of the townsman. There are over a thousand newspapers in the Dominion, which for a population of a million is a goodly number, though one cannot regard this as too great an indication of the intellectual advancement of the people. Yet literacy is the possession of the farmer as much as and frequently more than the city-dweller in New Zealand. His children go to school even if they have to use the trains to get there; free railway passes on these are accorded by the Government. And on the whole the farmer's life in New Zealand is richer than that of most rural communities. But the struggle is still great. I have seen some who do not feel that the promise is worth it.

Though each of the big cities in the Dominion has its own special characteristics, they are all considerably alike. The three chief ones are all port cities of about 80,000 inhabitants each, and except for the fact that Dunedin in the far south is essentially Scotch and somewhat more stolid than the rest, and Wellington in the center is the capital of the Dominion and therefore suspicious, one may go up and down their steep hills without any change in one's social gears. The colonial atmosphere is at once charming and chilling. There is a certain sobriety throughout which makes up for lack of the luxuries of modern life. But one cannot escape the conviction that regularity is not all that man needs. Everything moves along at the pace of a river at low level,—broad, spacious, serene, but without hidden places to explore or sparkling peaks of human achievement to emulate. One paddles down the stream of New Zealand life without the prospect of thrills. One might be transported from Auckland in the north to Wellington or Dunedin in the south during sleep, and after waking set about one's tasks without realizing that a change had been made.

Every city is well lighted; good trams (trolley-cars) convey one in all directions, but at an excessively high fare; the water and sewerage systems are never complained of; the theaters are good and the shops full of things from England and America. There are even many fine motor-cars. But there are few signs of great wealth, though comparatively big fortunes are not unknown. It is rumored that ostentation is never indulged in, as the attitude of the people as a whole is averse to it.

On the other hand, neither are there any signs of extreme poverty, though it exists; and slums to harbor it. While the usual evils of social life obtain, the small community life makes it impossible for them to become rampant. Every one knows every one else and that which is taboo, if indulged in, must be carried out with such extreme secrecy as to make it impossible for any blemish to appear upon the face of things.

In these circumstances, one is immediately classified and accepted or rejected, according as one is or is not acceptable. Having recognized certain outstanding features of the gentleman in you, the New Zealander is Briton enough to accept you without further ado. There is in a sense a certain naÏvetÉ in his measurement of the stranger. He is frank in questioning your position and your integrity, but shrinks from carrying his suspicions too far. He will ask you bluntly: "Are you what you say you are?" "Of course I am," you say. "Then come along, mate." But he does not take you very far, not because he is niggardly, but because he is thrifty.

As a result of this New Zealand spirit I found myself befriended from one end of New Zealand to the other by a single family, the elder brother having given me letters of introduction to every one of his kin,—in Hamilton, Palmerston North, Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin. And with but two or three exceptions I have always found New Zealanders generous and open-hearted. Wherever I went, once I broke through a certain shyness and reserve, I found myself part of the group, though generally I did not remain long, because I felt that new sensations could not be expected.

My one great difficulty was in keeping from falling in love with the New Zealand girls. Rosy-cheeked, sturdy, silently game and rebellious, they know what it is to be flirtatious. For them there is seldom any other way out of their loneliness. Only here and there do parents think it necessary to give their daughters any social life outside the home. In these days of the movies, New Zealand girls are breaking away from knitting and home ties. But even then few girls care to preside at representations of others' love-affairs without the opportunity of going home and practising, themselves. Hence the streets are filled with flirtatious maidens strolling four abreast, hoping for a chance to break into the couples and quartets of young men who choose their own manly society in preference to that of expensive girls. I have seen these groups pass one another, up and down the streets, frequent the tea-houses and soda fountains, carry on their flirtations from separate tables, pay for their own refreshments or their own theater tickets; but real commingling of the sexes in public life is not pronounced.

At the beaches! That is different. There the dunes and bracken are alive with couples all hours of the day or night during the holiday and summer seasons. Thence emerge engagements and hasty marriages, nor can parental watchfulness guard against it.

3

The most difficult thing in all my New Zealand experiences was to reconcile the latent conservatism of the people with their outstanding progressiveness. It would be easy to assert without much fear of contradiction that notwithstanding all the talk of radicalism in the matter of labor legislation there is little of it in practice in the Dominion. The reason for this is twofold. First, New Zealand, unlike Australia and America, was not a rebellious offshoot of England, not a protest against Old-World curtailment. Quite the contrary, it was made in the image of the mother country, and natural selection for the time being was dormant. Furthermore, it was simple for labor to dominate in a country where labor was to be had only at that premium.

Nowhere in the whole Dominion did I come across concrete evidence of awakened consciousness on the part of the masses to their opportunities. None of that feverish haste to raise monuments of achievement to accompany the legislative enactments which have given New Zealand an illustrious place among the nations. True, the country is young; true, there are not enough people there to pile creation on creation. But that is not it. It is that they are not keyed up to any great notions of what they ought to expect of themselves, but are content with what freedom and leisure of life they possess.

Throughout the length and breadth of the two islands, islands more than two thirds the size of Japan, there isn't an outstanding structure of any great architectural value; there isn't a statue or a monument of artistic importance; there is hardly a painting of exceptional quality; nor, with all the remarkable beauty of nature which is New Zealand's, is there any poetic outpouring of love of nature that one would expect from a people heirs to some of the finest poetry in the world. Even British India has its Kipling and its Tagore. With all the excellence of their efforts to solve the problem of the welfare of the masses, New Zealanders show no excessive largeness of heart in the sort of welcome they extend to labor of other lands. Here, it would seem, is a land where the world may well be reborn, where there is every opportunity for the correction of age-long wrongs that have become too much a part of Europe for Europeans to resent them too heartily. Yet what is New Zealand doing and what has it done in seventy-five years to approximate Utopia?

This is not meant as a criticism of New Zealand; rather is it meant to let New Zealand know that the eyes of the world are upon it and expect much from it. Possession may be nine points of the law; but the utilization of opportunity which possession entails is the tenth point toward the retention of that which one has.

Babies are cared for better in New Zealand than any other place in the world, yet boys and girls still receive that antiquated form of correction, corporal punishment, and thought of letting the youth find his own salvation, with guidance only, not coercion, is still alien to the New Zealand pedagogic mind. Women have had the vote for over twenty-five years, but the freedom of woman to seek her own development, to become a factor in the social life of the community apart from the man's, is still a neglected dream. And young women are dying of ennui because they aren't given enough to do. The country is fairly rich, with its enormous droves of sheep, great pastures full of cattle, its coÖperative capitalistic farming-schemes; but the human genius for beauty and self-expression must find opportunity in Britain or America. And even the old romance of pioneer life is virtually of the past. In all my wanderings I came across only one home that made me throw out my emotional chest to contain the spirit of the pioneer life of which we all love to hear. It was a house as rough as it was old, laden with shelving and hung with guns, horns, and lithographs, and cheered by a blazing open fire,—an early virility New Zealand has now completely outgrown. The house must have been fifty years old, to judge from the Scotsman living there. He was keen, alert, and quick, a most interesting opponent in discussion, most firm in his beliefs without being offensive. Here, in the very heart of one of the earliest of New Zealand's settlement districts in the South Island, he lived with his family; and something of the old sweetness of life, the atmosphere of successful conquest, obtained. And ever as I dug down into New Zealand's past, I found it charming. The present is too steeped in cheap machine processes to be either durable or really satisfying.

Discouraging as this may sound, he who has lived in the little Dominion and has learned to love its people and their ways, hastens to contradict his own charges. For in time, as one becomes better acquainted, one finds a healthy discontent brewing beneath that apathetic exterior. Just as the Chinese will do anything to "save face" so the Briton will do anything not to "lose face." He loses much of his latent charm in so restricting himself, but when assured that a new convention is afoot and that it is safe for him to venture forth with it, he will do so with a zest that is itself worth much.

Furthermore, there is in the atmosphere of staid New Zealand life a passion for the out-of-doors which is worth more than all the Greenwich Village sentiment twice over. Girls are always just as happy in the open and more interesting than when indulging in cigarettes and exposing shapely legs in intellectual parlors. Given twenty million people instead of one New Zealand would blossom forth into one of the loveliest flowers of the Pacific.

4

In the Auckland (New Zealand) Art Gallery hangs a picture representing the coming of the Maories to New Zealand. Their long canoe is filled with emaciated people vividly suggesting the suffering and privation they must have undergone in coming across the mainland some four hundred years ago. Venturing without sail or compass, these daring Polynesians must have possessed intrepid and courageous natures.

Yet at the time I was in that gallery the place was full of stifled boyish laughter. A half-dozen little tots, with spectacles and school-bags, one with blazing red hair, had come to see the pictures. They were not Maori children, but the offspring of the white race, which less than a hundred years ago came in their sailing-vessels and steamers, with powder and lead, and took with comparative ease a land won by such daring travail.

I had heard much of these natives,—idyllic tales of their charm and the lure of their maidens. Those lovely Maori girls! I expected to see them crowding the streets of Auckland. But they were conspicuous by their absence. Occasionally a few could be seen squatting on the sidewalks, more strangers to the city than I, more outstanding from the display of color and manner which thronged Queens Street than any American could be in so ultra a British community as dominates New Zealand. Where are the Maories? I wondered. Upon their "reservations" like our own Amerinds, or lost to their own costumes and even to their own blood and color?

I had returned to Auckland from a visit with a friend whose wife was Maori, in the company of her nephew. He carried with him a basket of eels as a gift to his mother, and walked up the street with me. At a corner he was hailed by a dark-skinned man in a well-cut business suit, and said, "There is my father. I must leave you." In another moment he was in a large touring car and was whizzed away by his Maori father at the wheel. No wonder I hadn't been able to see any Maories.

I visited a school where Maori boys are being encouraged to artificial exercises,—sports, hurdle-jumping, running. I watched them make ready, eager for the petty prizes offered. Off went their shoes, out went their chests, expanded with ancestral joy. In their bare feet, still as tough as in former days before they were induced to buy cowhides, they skipped over the ground, filled for the moment with the glory of being alive. Their faces broke out in fantastic, native grimaces and contortions as though an imaginary enemy confronted them. But alas, they were seeking him in the wrong direction! The enemy comes with no spears, and no clang, but he is more deadly. He is not without but within. He makes them cough. They fall behind.

"They do not last long," said the Briton who was instructing them. "They are dying rapidly of consumption. As long as we keep them here in school they are all right. Finer specimens of human physique could not be found anywhere. But as soon as they return to their pas, and live in the squalor of the native villages, they return to all the old methods of life and soon go under."

I set out on my tramp through New Zealand. At Bombey, a few days' jaunt from Auckland, I met an old settler, whose accounts of the great and last war of the redcoats with the fierce fighters of Maoriland dated back to our own Civil War, 1861-64. Until that time both Maories and Britons said, with few exceptions, "Our races cannot mix. One or the other of us must give away." Naturally, the Maories had the prior claim, but they finally yielded, surrendering their lands to the aliens at Ngaruawahia, "The Meeting of the Waters," that little hamlet lying in the crotch between the beautiful Waikato River and one of its tributaries. And henceforward, the two races were constrained to meet, and rush down together into that green sea of human commonalty, albeit one of them contributes the dominant volume.

Maori legend has it that the Maories are the descendants of the great Rangatira (chief) who was the offspring of a similarly great Tanewa (shark). He was born in the dark southern caves of the Tongariro Mountains, and the spirits of their ancestors have always dwelt along the broad Waikato. Along this river I wandered for many days, but I found few of the Rangatira's descendants. If one is quiet and alone the voice of the great Tanewa will call softly through the marsh rushes from out of the heart of the quivering flax. It is peaceful and encompassing, modest and almost afraid. I heard it and I am sure those Maories hear it who are not too engrossed in the scramble after foreign trinkets. It said: "The last mortal or man descendant of mine will be the offspring of a Pakeha-Maori (a white man who lives among the Maories) who will live in the cities and rush about in motor-cars, but I shall remain in the marshes, the calm rivers, and near the glittering leaves of flax."

A few miles farther on I came to Huntley, and hearing that there was a native village across the Waikato River, I turned thither by way of the bridge. I overtook two wahines, slovenly, indolent, careless in their manners. They spoke to me flippantly. They wanted to know if I was bound for the missionaries' place. This led to questions from me: Why were they turning Mormon? Which sect did they prefer? But I could obtain answers only by innuendo. I left these two women behind and found three others chasing a pig in an open field, three boys bathing a horse in the deep river. All about the village was strewn refuse; vicious dogs slunk hungrily about,—neglect, neglect, on every hand. But instead of flimsy native huts there were wooden shacks with corrugated iron roofs, the longer to remain unregenerate, breeders of disease and wasters of human energy.

But the more elaborate native village at Rotorua, at the other end of the island, where visitors are frequent, was more up-to-date and cleaner. And on a little knoll was a model of an old Maori pah, such as was used in the days before guns made it possible to fight in ambush and in the valleys, and brought the sturdy savages down not only from their more wholesome heights but from their position of vantage as a race.

Here I met an odd sort of article in the way of human ware. Only seventeen, he was twice my size, and lazy and pliable in proportion. He would come into my room and just stay. With a steady, piercing, yet stolid and almost epileptic stare, cunning, yet not shrewd, not steady, nor guided by any evident train of thought, he would watch me write. I was a mystery to him, and he frankly doubted the truth of things I told him.

First he said I had the build of a prize-fighter; then, perhaps on thinking it over, he doubted that I had ever done any hard work in my life. As to himself, he said he loved to break in wild horses. His father, according to one tale, was wealthy; two of his brothers were engineers on boats. But he hated study. He was altogether lacking in any notion of time, but he was not lazy. He was even ready to do work that was not his to do.

One afternoon he was in a most jovial mood. He was about to have a tent raised in which he would spend the summer, instead of the hotel room allotted to the help. He was full of glee at the prospect. Primitive instincts seemed to waken in him. But there was a sudden reaction,—whimsical. We had stepped upon the lawn which afforded an open view across Lake Rotorua.

"Strange, isn't it," he said without any preamble, "how money goes from one man to another, from here to Auckland and to Sydney? So much money." He became reminiscent: "Maories didn't know a thing about money. They were rich. See, across this lake,—that little island,—the whole was once a battle-field. The Maories went out in their canoes and fought with their battle-axes. What for? Oh, to gain lands. But now they are poor. Things are so dead here now. Nothing doing." A moment later he was called and disappeared. It was the only time he was ever communicative. The tent had roused in him racial regrets.

One evening he came up to my door and told me there was a dance at the hall, and that he was going to it. Again that strange revival of racial memories, but these of hope and prospect, came into his face, "I'm going to take my 'tart' (girl) with me," he announced. And later in the evening, as I sat alone, watching the moon rise over the lake, the laughter of those Maories rang out across the hills.

Though I wandered for many miles, running into the hundreds, the number of Maori villages and people I came across were few and far between. Yet records show that once these regions were alive with more than a hundred thousand fighting natives. At Rotorua, the hot-springs district in the North Island, the pah was in exceptionally good condition, but it was so largely because the New Zealand Government has made of the place one of its most attractive tourist resorts and the natives are permitted to exact a tax from every visitor who wishes to see the geysers. Elsewhere the villages are dull, dreary, and neglected: the farther away from civilization, the worse they get. The consequence is not surprising.

According to the census of 1896, there were 39,854 people of the Maori race: 21,673 males, 18,181 females, of which 3,503 were half-castes who lived as Maories, and 229 Maori women married to Europeans. The Maori population fell from 41,993 in 1891 to 39,854 in 1896, a decrease in five years of 2,139. But in 1901 it had risen to 43,143, going steadily up to 49,844 in 1911, and dropping to 49,776 in 1916 on account of the European war.

There was considerable discussion in the New Zealand Parliament on the question of whether the Maories should be included in the Draft Act, most white men declaring that a race which was dying, despite this seeming increase, should not be taxed for its sturdiest young men in a war that was in truth none of its concern. But the Maories—that is, their representatives—objected, saying they did not wish to be discriminated against. Among the young men, however, I found not a few who were inclined to reason otherwise. So it was that while I was talking to the young fellows who were washing their horse in the Waikato, one of them said to me:

"Yes. Years ago the white men came to us with guns and cannon and powder and compelled us to give up our warfare, which kept us in good condition individually and as a race. We put aside our weapons. Now they come to us and tell us we must go to Europe and fight for them." And he became silent and thoughtful.

As I came back into Huntly from my visit to the pah I passed the little court-house, before which was a crowd of Maories. Some of the wahines sat with shawls over their heads smoking their pipes as though they were in trousers, not skirts. I chatted with the British Bobby who stood at the door, asking him what was bestirring Maoriland so much.

"Oh, that bally old king of theirs has been subpoenaed to answer for his brother. The blighter has been keeping him out of sight so that he won't be taken in the draft."

"But," I protested—democrat though I was, my heart went out to the old "monarch"—"can't the king get his brother, the archduke and possible successor to the throne, out of performing a task that might hazard the foundation of the imperial line?"

"King be damned! Wait till we get the blighter in here," said the servant of the law, pressing his heels into the soft, oozy tar pavement as he turned scornfully from me.

5

A few days later I was cutting my way through a luxuriant mountain forest above Te Horoto in the North Island, listening to the melodious tui, the bell-bird, and to the song of the parson-bird in his black frock of feathers with a small tuft of white under his beak, like the reversed collar of a cleric. No sound of bird in any of the many countries I have been to has ever filled me with greater rapture than did this. There are thousands of skylarks in New Zealand, brought from England, but had Shelley heard the tui he might have written an ode more beautiful even than that to the "blithe spirit" he has immortalized. Yet, like the human natives, these feathery folk have vastly decreased since the coming of the white man. No wonder Pehi Hetan Turoa, great chief of a far country on the other side of the island, in complaining of the decay of his race, said: "Formerly, when we went into a forest, and stood under a tree, we could not hear ourselves speak for the noise of the birds—every tree was full of them.... Now, many of the birds have died out."

Enraptured with the loveliness of the native bush and the clear, sweet air, I pressed up the mountain side with great strides. Presently I passed a simple Maori habitation. It was about noon. Seeing smoke rise out of an opening in the roof, indicating that the owners were at home, I entered the yard. My eyes, full of the bright, clear sunlight, could not discern any living thing as I poked my head in at the door, but I could hear a voice bidding me enter. I stepped into a sort of antechamber, a large section of the hut with a floor of beaten earth and a single pillar slightly off the center supporting the roof. Gradually, as my eyes became accustomed to the subdued light, I saw an aged couple within a small alcove on the farther side. An open fire crackled in the center of its floor. The old woman sitting on her bed-space, was bending over the flame, fanning it to life. The old man, who was very tall, lay on a mat-bed to the right, his legs stretched in my direction. The two beds, the fire, and the old couple took up the entire space of the alcove,—a sort of kitchenette-bedroom affair like our modern "studio" apartments.

"Where are you from?" asked the old man, after I had seated myself before the fire. "America," I said. My reply evoked no great surprise in him.

"The village is quiet," I said. "Where are the people?"

"Oh, down in the valley, working in the fields."

"Don't you go out, too?" I asked.

"Oh, I'm too old now. My legs ache with rheumatism. I go no more. Let the young fellows work. Stay and have tea with us," he urged.

I looked at their stock. They did not seem to have any too much themselves, and the old woman seemed a little worried. I knew that the heart of the hostess was the same the world over, so I assured them I had had my meal, and only wished to rest a while away from the sun. The old woman showed relief.

We chatted as cordially as it is possible where tongues cannot fully make themselves understood. I learned that the man was an old chief. He could not fall in with the times, acknowledged his inability to direct the affairs of this strange world, and only asked for rest and quiet, and the respect due one of his position. He did not expect to live long, nor did he much care. "These are not days for me," he said with a smile. He did not speak of the former glories of his race. Doubtless he could not exactly make up his mind whether to look before or after: if there were great chiefs before, are there not big M.P.'s now?

The fire was burning low, and I knew that the old woman would have to go for more wood unless she hurried with the preparation of her meal, and that as long as I was there I was delaying her. So I rose to go. The old man excused himself for not rising by pointing to his lame legs. She saw me to the gate, and as I struck down the road she waved her hand after me in farewell, and remained behind the screen of trees round which I veered.

Down in the valley lying almost precipitately below me were a number of natives working in their fields; but my road led me on to the cities, and it is there that the future of this race hangs in the balance.

Some months later, while I was living in Dunedin in the far south of the South Island, the newspapers came out in a way almost American, so exciting was the bit of news. The editorial world forgot all decorum and dignity and pulled out the largest type it had on hand. It was announced that the Maori priest, Rua, was caught. Several persons were wounded and one, I believe, was killed in the process. The priest was treated with no respect and little consideration and thrown into prison,—all because he believed in having several wives as his men-folk always had, if they were chiefs and priests, and was trying to put a little life into his race, trying to stir it up to casting out these "foreign devils." He had built himself a temple that was an interesting work of art, but it holds worshipers no more, even though the priest has since been released. His efforts to rouse his people failed. Such efforts are only the reflex action of a dying race.

CHAPTER VII
ASTRIDE THE EQUATOR
The Second Side of The Triangle

Dark is the way of the Eternal as mirrored in this world of Time: God's way is in the sea, and His path in the great deep.—Carlyle.

1

More than a year went by before I began drawing in the radial thread that held me suspended from the North Star under the Southern Cross,—a year replete with lone wanderings and searching reflections. During all those months not a single day had passed without my surveying in my mind's eye the reaches of the Pacific that lay between me and the Orient. Roundabout New Zealand I had become familiar with the Tasman Sea looking toward Australia, on the shores of which I had spent some of the most mysterious nights of my life; on Hawkes Bay looking out toward South America; and across the surging waters of Otago Harbor at Dunedin, looking in the direction of the frozen reaches of Antarctica.

THE S. S. AURORA
Just arrived at Port Chalmers, N. Z., from the South Pole

MOUNT COOK OF THE NEW ZEALAND ALPS IN SUMMER

CIRCULAR QUAY, SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
A whirl of pleasure-seeking and business

MONUMENT TO CAPTAIN COOK
At Botany Bay, Australia

ONE OF THE OLDEST AUSTRALIAN RESIDENCES IS NOW A PUBLIC DOMAIN

THE INTERIOR OF A WEALTHY SHEEP STATION OWNER'S HOME IN MELBOURNE

A. A. White, Brisbane

AUSTRALIAN BLACKS IN THEIR NATIVE ELEMENT

AN AUSTRALIAN BLACK IN MELBOURNE
Out of his element but happy none the less